Lupita Nyong’o Says Hollywood Tried to Box Her Into Slave Roles After Oscar Win

Lupita Nyong’o is opening up about what happened to her career right after she won her Oscar, and her story shows how limited Hollywood can be.

According to her own comments, she expected that winning such a major award would open doors to many different kinds of roles.

Instead, she kept getting offers that all looked the same. She explained that people were still trying to cast her in roles connected to slavery. In her words, “After I won the Academy Award, you’d think, ‘I’m gonna get lead roles here and there.’ [They’re like], ‘Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to play another movie where you’re a slave but this time you’re on a slave ship.’”

She said these were the kinds of offers she received for months after her big win. At the same time, she noticed articles questioning whether her career would go anywhere. She said there were think pieces asking if her moment was already over simply because she is a dark-skinned Black African woman.

She explained how hard it was to deal with that noise, saying, “I had to deafen myself to all these pontificators because, at the end of the day, I’m not a theory— I’m an actual person.”

Lupita made it clear that she wants to change the way African people are seen on screen. She said she is willing to work less if that’s what it takes to avoid reinforcing old stereotypes.

As she put it, “I’d like to be a joyful warrior for changing the paradigms of what it means to be African and if that means I work one job less a year to ensure that I’m not perpetuating the stereotypes that are expected of people from my continent, then let me do that.”

Her Oscar win was historic. She earned several major nominations for 12 Years a Slave, including at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and SAG Awards, and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She became the sixth Black actress to win the award, the second African actress ever to win it, the first Kenyan actress to win an Oscar, and the first Mexican to do so. Her blue Prada dress from that night also became one of those red carpet looks people still talk about.

Even though Hollywood tried to typecast her after her win, she kept pushing for more varied roles. Her first film after the Oscar was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where she played Maz Kanata through motion-capture.

She chose that role partly because her appearance didn’t determine the character, giving her a different challenge than her earlier work. More recently, she has been cast in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey, set to arrive in 2026.

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